Sign up now for the 2022 Storytellers Project
We love hearing stories as much as we love telling them.
That’s why we joined The Storytellers Project for 2022, and we’re seeking people with compelling stories to tell.
We’re not looking for professional storytellers. We’re looking for people who will speak from the heart about personal experiences.
In fact, the Storytellers Project team at The Dispatch will coach those who are selected to tell their stories in front of a live audience in Downtown Columbus next year.
It’s a perfect extension of what we do on Dispatch.com and in the printed paper. We tell other people’s stories. In this case, we get to help people tell stories in their own words. And we’ll tell some of our own, too, during the live events.
As you might have seen in a story we published last week about this project, Dispatch editors and reporters will curate quarterly shows for The Storytellers Project, coaching 20 people from the community to develop entertaining, compelling stories that reflect on the themes of growing up, neighbors, food and family, and holidays.
I had heard about the USA Today Network’s Storytellers Project even before The Dispatch was part of the Network, and I was a little jealous of the Cincinnati Enquirer and other Gannett newsrooms that were part of the project.
We have great storytellers in Columbus!
I read your stories every day, and I’d love to hear them in person. If you’re wondering why you would be interested in these stories, watch and listen to a few of them here: storytellersproject.com/ watch/.
Some will make you laugh. Others will make you cry. And you’ll learn something from all of them — the very least of which is that you have some pretty amazing neighbors.
Since its launch in 2011 at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, the Storytellers Project has helped more than 6,000 people tell brief, personal stories on stages in front of more than 60,000 people. And during the pandemic, the shows were aired online, reaching millions since March 2020. In 2022, it will be part of 17
USA TODAY Network newsrooms.
The Dispatch newsroom is seeking pitches from storytellers at storytellersproject.com/tell. And tickets are on sale now for the 2022 events at storytellersproject.com.
A good story from Groveport
The Groveport Police Department maintains a delightful Facebook page with short features about members of the department and scenes from across the city.
A recent post by Lt. Josh Short featured a Dispatch carrier, Justin Matthews.
“Most of you don’t know him or will never meet him, but he is one of the hardest working guys I know,” Short wrote about Matthews. “Six days a week, he is up before sunrise delivering your Columbus Dispatch. After he finishes his route and runs the kids to school, he heads over to his family’s restaurant
where he works till around midnight. He then catches a few hours of sleep before the routine starts over again.”
Short wrote that he first met Justin “when our country was experiencing nationwide unrest and rioting. He approached me when I had stopped to get my morning caffeine and greeted me with a big hug and some very encouraging words of support.
“Ever since then, I will get the biggest wave from him when we regularly pass each other out on our routes and we will often stop in the middle of a side street to get out of our cars and catch up with each other,” Short wrote. “Every day brings opportunity to give and receive kindness and potential to be a lasting point of positivity in someone’s life.”
150th anniversary cheer from The Dispatch
In this year of The Dispatch’s 150th anniversary, we worked with local partners to find ways to celebrate the occasion and for all of us to give something to the community.
State of Devotion T-shirt company developed a special shirt with the iconic Dispatch neon sign, Stauf’s Coffee Roasters put together a flavorful “Dispatch Deadline Dark Roast” coffee blend that will go perfectly with your morning news reading, and Middle West Spirits produced Dispatch@150 single-barrel, cask-strength whiskey to celebrate the founding of The Dispatch in 1871.
A portion of the proceeds from this special collection will go to the Midohio Food Collective to support its mission of feeding those in need in Greater Columbus.
State of Devotion T-shirts and Stauf’s Dispatch Deadline Dark Roast will go on sale next week also via their websites (https://www.stateofdevotion.com/ and https:// www.staufs.com/) and at their in-store locations. While supplies last, you’ll receive a Dispatch coffee mug with each Stauf’s purchase.
Anyone interested in ordering a gift set that includes a T-shirt, bag of coffee and bottle of whiskey, or reserving a bottle of whiskey, can do so at middlewestspirits.com starting Wednesday, Dec. 8.
Alan D. Miller is editor of The Dispatch.
amiller@dispatch.com